


From the Ashes

by garbage_dono



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU where lotor isn't a shitass, F/M, Fix-It, Lotor Redemption, Mentions of past abuse, Oriande, Redemption, Season 6 Finale Alternative Ending, Time Skips, Voltron Season 6 Spoilers, if that's not what you're looking for feel free to skip this one, post season 6 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garbage_dono/pseuds/garbage_dono
Summary: Following their return from the Quintessence Field, Allura attempts to understand how Lotor ended up on the path that sent him there.





	From the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Lotor wasn't left to rot in the quintessence field because I'm salty as fuck.
> 
> If you're not looking for a Lotor redemption fic, this isn't for you.
> 
> Also i wrote this all in one sitting and I am Tired so this isn't proofread at the moment.

_“We can’t just leave him here!”_

The words burned in Allura’s chest, echoing through her headset as her gaze stayed locked on Lotor’s ship. It floated farther from them with every passing moment, broken, mangled, corrupted by the quintessence surrounding them and seeping into their own minds. They had less than a dobash – probably just a few ticks before they would fall to it too. She could feel it even now, creeping into the corners of her vision and making everything look blurry and distorted. Like looking through a broken lens.

“We have to get out of here!” Keith insisted, his voice sounding distant and stilted. And she knew he was right, no matter how much it pained her. They had to escape the quintessence field before they, too, were corrupted by its influence, and they didn’t have time to spare. Fleeing was the only option.

So why did it feel so _wrong?_ Why did she feel like every cell in her body was screaming at her to disobey, to _save_ him, even as righteous anger blazed inside her at the thought of all he had done?

Why did she still have _hope_ for him?

She couldn’t explain it, but she also couldn’t deny it. Suddenly she felt herself surge forward and realized that Voltron had disbanded, her own lion soaring through the quintessence field toward Lotor’s ship. Keith, Pidge, Lance, Hunk – their voices all melded together over the comm, all of them begging her to stop, to come back, to abandon him and flee.

She didn’t blame them. She couldn’t blame them. Perhaps they were right.

“ _Go!_ ” she insisted, barely able to get the word out before shutting off her communicator. She hoped – prayed – that they would listen. At the very least, if this was as foolhardy as she feared, they would be safe. She would be putting no lives in jeopardy except for her own.

 _Ancients, please tell me I’m making the right choice,_ she silently pleaded as the blue lion’s jaws locked down on the hull of Lotor’s ship.

The stretch between her and the exit from this realm seemed impossibly long, gaping before her as the other Paladins seemed to drift farther and farther. Her movement was slowed by the weight of Lotor’s ship, the engines groaning as she pushed them to maximum capacity. Just a bit more…just a bit further and they would be free from this place. This terrifyingly beautiful place…

_Stars, please tell me this was the right thing to do…_

Tears streaked down her face as the exit came into view, so tantalizingly close, and yet so impossibly far at the same time. Her head was swimming, her chest aching. Why couldn’t she let him go? Why couldn’t she leave him here to rot for his crimes? _Why couldn’t she hate him?_

She wanted to understand. She desperately wished she could fathom her own feelings, but they were like a quagmire, all swirling together until she couldn’t tell fury from remorse from hope. The exit was so close now, blurring in front of her as her consciousness began to recede from the edges of her periphery.

Just a bit further. Just a bit more.

_Gods, please do not let me be wrong._

She crossed through the barrier and blacked out, surrounded by darkness and twinkling stars.

* * *

“Allura,” Coran asked, his voice heavy with concern, “Are you sure about this?”

She wasn’t sure. Stars, she hadn’t been certain since she had first pulled him from the quintessence field. She wished that she could be confident in her convictions, but ambivalence twisted in her stomach as she looked at Lotor’s unconscious form.

“I don’t know,” she told him, honestly. It was all she could manage. Any other answer would have been a lie.

He sighed, his shoulders dropping. He disapproved – she could tell. But he never once said as much. She didn’t blame him for having his doubts. Stars knew she had more than enough of her own. But alongside all of them, buried deep in the recesses of her mind, a tiny spark of… _something_ bright and powerful stubbornly refused to let those doubts overtake her. At least not entirely.

She had been betrayed, used, twisted into some unwilling participant in Lotor’s game. It had all been a lie, a carefully constructed fantasy that he had built with the intention of furthering his own empire. She had turned these things over and over in her mind, examining them from every angle, trying to pinpoint the signs, to understand where she went wrong to trust him.

But like so many things about Lotor, it was not that simple.

She turned toward Coran. “The others…the Alteans…are they safe?”  

“Yes,” he said softly, like he didn’t quite believe it himself. She wasn’t sure she did either. “All of them. This colony is so well secluded I doubt anyone would have found it if Romelle hadn’t given us the coordinates…”

Allura nodded, swallowing thickly. “And the bodies?”

He took a breath, his voice heavier as he told her, “All removed from the pods. It will take time to tend to all of them, but…we’ll get it done, Allura.”

She gripped the edge of the pod in front of her, eyes locked on Lotor’s face as her knuckles went white against the metal. “Good,” she whispered. “Coran…thank you.” She turned to Pidge and Hunk, both of them kneeling by the control panel. “Is it all ready?”

“Should be,” Pidge said solemnly. “This place has been dormant for a long time, but the power source is still able to run the machines. At least at limited capacity.”

“That’s all we need,” Allura said with a nod.

“Princess…” Pidge let her arms slump against her knees, a motion that made her look as exhausted as she was sure all of them felt. “Can I ask…why are you doing this? What he did…it’s…it’s so awful. All those bodies…hooked up to those…those _things._ ”

She knelt next to Pidge, putting a hand on the paladin’s shoulder. “I know,” she said softly. “I wish you all had never had to see this…this horrifying place.” She swallowed thickly, feeling a hand on her own arm. Coran. She drew a shuddering breath. “But please understand…I must do this. I must at least try. If only to understand…”

She stood again, turning toward the others. They all watched from across the room, their faces lit an eerie, sickly green by the low-power lighting of the darkened facility. “Keith, Shiro, Lance…could you go check on Romelle and the others?” she asked, her voice ragged, almost pleading.

They cast another glance at Lotor, anger burning behind their eyes before they turned and left.

“Is the machine powered up?” Allura asked, and Hunk nodded.

“Should just flip this switch,” he told her. “Do you…want us to go with the others?”

Despite everything, she managed a weak smile. “You’ve done everything I needed…thank you.” She closed her eyes against a wave of emotion that welled up inside of her. “Thank you…thank you both.”

“Right,” Hunk breathed, helping Pidge up with one hand. They made their way to the door, their feet dragging. “You know…I don’t know whether this is the right thing to do, but…I trust your judgment Allura. I always have.”

They were both gone a moment later, and she was left alone with Coran. The silence that settled around them was heavy, almost stifling, broken only by the low hum of the wretched machine before them and Lotor’s slow and ragged breathing.

Coran studied the wires and tubing extending from the apparatus, a deep crease in his brow as his eyes tracked their snake-like length all the way to where they attached to Lotor’s body. “This thing is truly a horrifying piece of work,” he mused. “A machine designed to extract quintessence from a living body…”

“Once we’re done here,” she said, “I hope to reduce it to nothing but ash.”

“I hope so too.”

She turned toward him as he took his place at the control panel. “Are you ready?”

He took a breath. “If you are, Allura.”

“Now.”

Coran steadied his hand and pulled the lever, and the machine whirred and hummed to life again. Allura watched as the green glow propagated down the length of each channel, casting its ghostly light over Lotor’s entire body. Gleaming purple tendrils extended from each connection to his skin, spider-like markings that etched themselves like scars onto the surface of his flesh, growing brighter with every passing moment.

A sound escaped Lotor’s throat, halfway between a growl and a sob. His body arched, his fingers curling against the mat, his neck stretching back until the tendons there were stretched taught. His face contorted in agony, his brow pinching and his mouth falling open in a silent moan as purple light began to move upward through the channels, drowning out the sickly green and bathing them in lavender.

Coran kept his gaze fixed on the control panel, but Allura watched every second. She watched him claw at the mat, watched his expression morph into something feral as he strained against his bonds, growling like a wounded animal. She watched, her fists clenched tight against the edge of the pod as the quintessence was ripped from his body.

Did he watch as the same was done to all of those Alteans before, she wondered? Did he watch the life force drain from them as they struggled to retain it? Or did he turn away and let others do his dirty work for him? She couldn’t decide which would be more detestable. Perhaps this was a mistake. Perhaps this was monstrous of her, nothing but meaningless torture masquerading as a righteous cause. She didn’t know. She prayed that her actions were not so heinous.

It seemed to go on forever, Lotor straining and clawing and snarling, but slowly, his expression changed. The rage and madness that had etched itself onto his features seemed to melt into something almost mournful – a pained and terrified grimace that deepened until the machine finally went quiet again.

The glow receded, and Lotor was cast in shadows, his body limp and pale. Allura’s breath caught in her throat as he drew in a ragged breath and whimpered softly.

Slowly, painfully, he opened his eyes, and they met hers.

For a moment, his face was a picture of nothing but confusion. Like someone waking up from a life-like dream, his brow pinched as he studied her, then glanced over at Coran, down at the restraints binding his wrists and ankles. She could see the fear seeping into his eyes, just for a moment, before it was extinguished and replaced with nothing but exhaustion. Perhaps he was simply too tired to fear for his own life.

“Where…” he rasped, swallowing. “Where…am I?”

“The second colony,” Allura told him, fighting to keep her voice steady.

He blinked, gazing around the room again, and with every inch of it that he took in, he tensed more and more. His breathing grew heavier, his eyes glazing over with something akin to a creeping terror.

Realization, Allura noted.

He closed his eyes, the deep bags underneath them even more pronounced in the shadows now as he let his head fall back against the mat. “Is this a punishment?” he asked, his voice rough and heavy with…surrender? “It’s a fitting one…”

“That’s not why I brought you here,” Allura said. “I want to understand. I want to make sense of this…this place.”

“You’ll be sorely disappointed,” he told her, his eyes still closed. He let out a soft groan, listlessly testing his bonds before letting his arms go slack again. “What…did you do to me…”

Allura swallowed. “Your body was overflowing with quintessence,” she said. “It was tearing you apart. If we had left you in the quintessence field…”

His eyes opened again, a bewildered expression casting over his face. “The quintessence field,” he breathed. “The battle…that…was real?”

Allura glanced over at Coran, reminding herself to be strong. She had no reason to think this wasn’t another ploy – Lotor was nothing if not a brilliant strategist. And yet…she wondered, as she looked at the quintessence collection vessel that glowed with all of the energy they had extracted from him, how much did he truly remember?

“I was there,” she told him. “I watched you use the ship we built together to attack us all.”

Pain seeped into his eyes, like blood spreading through water. “Romelle,” he groaned. “You really found her?”

“She found us,” Allura said. “Otherwise, we never would have found this place. You hid it well…”

“Not well enough,” he breathed, his voice heavy with what sounded like regret. Regret that he had been found out? Or something else…

There was something in his eyes, something Allura couldn’t place. It was easy to wrap her mind around the idea that Lotor was disgusted with himself for failing in his mission, distressed about being captured and having the quintessence he had sought for so long drained from him using his own machines. But when she fit all of those pieces together, they were crooked in her mind, like there was something missing that she hadn’t quite been able to parse.

“Allura,” Lotor rasped, and she realized that his voice had changed. The word seemed to hurt him as he spoke, like it was hot and barbed. She looked at him, and found his eyes wide and desperate, locked onto hers. “You have no reason to trust me…no reason to grant me any request…Lock me up, throw me in the dungeons, launch me into deep space if you feel I deserve as much. But please…I beg you…don’t…” His voice and hands were shaking, terror seeping into his voice in a way she had never once heard before.

“Don’t…don’t leave me here…”

His words hung in the air between them, seeming to echo between the gaping metal innards of this retched facility, despite the fact that they had been nothing more than a pleading whisper. Allura looked around at all of the empty pods, abandoned leads, deactivated machinery – fossils left behind to tell a horrifying story. One that Lotor had written.

Here, surrounded by all of his handiwork, Lotor trembled in fear.

No…not fear. Not precisely. At least not fear that he would meet their same fate. He barely seemed to notice the machinery hooked up to his own body, but his eyes darted between every pod, glazed over like he was lost in some horrifying dream. Like he was seeing ghosts.

“How many?” she found herself asking, and his gaze fell on her again. She clenched her fists at her sides. “I asked before. You never answered. Tell me, Lotor. How many?”

He swallowed. “I…I thought…it was the only way.”

“How many?” she insisted again.

“I was trying to do the right thing-“

“ _How many?_ ” she roared, slamming her hands against the pod, and Lotor stilled.

He drew in a shaking breath. “One thousand…five hundred…and seventy-nine.”

Beside her, Coran let out a gasp, gripping the console for support. Allura felt just what she was sure he did – a punch to the gut that knocked the breath straight out of her. One thousand of her people…one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine...

“Why?” Coran asked, his voice shaking.

Lotor closed his eyes again. “It felt like a dream…Romelle…my mother…the battle…like a fever dream…a nightmare…” He drew in a gasp, like the memory caused him physical pain. “It’s all flashes…sounds and feelings…I can’t keep them straight in my mind…every time I try, they slip away…”

When he looked at her again, it felt like he was looking _through_ her, his eyes glazed over with despair and grief. “It turned me into a monster, Allura.”

Allura swallowed against the lump in her throat and leaned closer. “Answer him…why…why did you do this?”

His entire body seemed to go slack, to collapse under the weight of his own twisted memories. “I tried so many other ways. For millennia. But I never had my mother’s alchemic skill. I could never make it work. My father’s forces grew closer and closer every day, and I knew…I knew that if I was going to save Altea, I would have to do the unthinkable.” His voice was barely audible, almost nothing more than a whisper as he turned his head to the side and gazed down the seemingly endless row of empty pods that lined the corridor. “I tried so hard to forget this place…all those lives…I tried to tell myself it was for the greater good.”

Her jaw clenched. “You tried…”

“I tried,” he said again. “But I couldn’t. I thought I was weak, that I had to be stronger to do what had to be done. But every one I brought here…every one I…I…I wasn’t strong enough.” He shuddered. “In the quintessence field, I heard their voices…the moment we crossed through the barrier together – it was so loud I thought you could surely hear it too. It drowned out everything…it’s all I can remember…those voices from the void…”

He pressed his head against the mat, eyes squeezing shut as he strained against his bonds. “Make them stop…I beg you…please…”

She watched as tears dropped onto the mat under his cheek, wet tracks streaking down his face. She stared, her own eyes burning, as he trembled and pulled listlessly at his bonds. Softly, she said, “Quintessence does not corrupt…it reveals.” Lotor opened his eyes to look at her, agony etched into his face. “It reveals…the worst in us. It reveals the anger and hatred and pain. I felt it myself. I felt I could do anything in the quintessence field. I felt I could do horrible, unspeakable things, all in the name of my own anger…”

She drew closer, moving to the side of the pod so she could look down at him properly, and he gazed up at her, exhausted and drained. “And you…after so many years being spat on and hunted…is it any wonder that what the quintessence revealed in you was enough to drive you mad?”

He stared at her, bewildered, as she pressed a hand against his cheek. His skin was cold, wet against the pad of her thumb as she rubbed it beneath his eye. “Why didn’t you leave me there?” Lotor asked her. “Why did you pull me out? With all of the quintessence coursing through me, I could have…I could have killed you. Why… _why…_ ”

She had asked herself the same so many times, endlessly from the moment she had surged forward to drag him from the quintessence field with the paladins’ voices ringing in her ears. She had never been able to answer, never been able to place what force had driven her to save him when he had turned on all of them with such disdain. But as she thought of that moment, of a single urge rising up and drowning out all of the vengeful emotions fighting for dominance, she finally realized just what it was.

“Because you didn’t deserve it,” she told him.

He looked at her like he didn’t believe it. That alone was enough to make her heart ache.

She knelt beside him, at eye level, taking in every detail of the disbelief and anguish that lined his face, and she held his gaze. “What you did was monstrous,” she said. “And I don’t offer forgiveness because it isn’t mine to give. Those you hurt…those you killed…I can’t speak for them. But despite all of that…you did not deserve to rot in the quintessence field. Just as you did not deserve all of the suffering that was put upon you from the moment you were born.”

Something in Lotor seemed to shatter. Tears washed over her fingers, a broken wail echoing off the corridor walls. Behind her Coran had slumped onto the floor, sitting with his back against the console, a hand over his eyes. She hoped they both could heal with time. Perhaps it was a foolish hope, but she clung to it nonetheless.

But for that moment, she merely closed her eyes and let Lotor break. Let him crumble. Let him sob against her hand.

* * *

As night fell on the colony, Allura sat in the grass. She let the wind rush through her hair as the leaves tickled her fingers, and she closed her eyes. It felt like she had been sitting here for vargas, but the sun had only just set, and she didn’t have much reason to move before the night’s chill set in.

She felt someone sit beside her, and she glanced over to look at Coran as he settled down on the grass too. He looked, moreso than she had ever seen him. But then, she doubted she looked much different herself.

“One thousand five hundred and seventy-nine,” she said softly.

Coran let out a long, slow breath. They let the number hang between them for a moment before he said, “I checked the records. The number is accurate. One thousand five hundred and seventy-nine Alteans…”

She drew her knees in closer, holding them against her chest. “Was I wrong to bring him here?” she asked. “Was I just as wrong to save him…as I was to fall in love with him?”

Coran didn’t answer her right away, and she let her tears streak down her cheeks in silence, not bothering to stop them. She was too exhausted to try and hold them back anyway. She let them fall and let the wind wick them away.

“Allura…” Coran finally sighed. “I can’t tell you if it was right or not. You have to decide that for yourself. What Lotor did…it was horrific. There’s no denying that. But it’s something he’ll have to live with. Not you.” He took her hand. “We’ll figure out where to go from here, Allura. We always have.”

She sniffed and nodded, leaning over and resting her head on his shoulder. “Coran,” she finally breathed. “What happened to them? The bodies of all of those people…”

He swallowed. “Well that’s the thing…that facility was only one part of that moon. Keith and I, we investigated a bit further and…we found graves. Hundreds of them.”

She drew in a breath. “Our people…those Alteans, dropped into unmarked graves-“

“Not unmarked,” he told her. “There were headstones, strangely enough. Each with a name. And each one…well, it seemed like they were all dug by hand, by the looks of it.”

“By…hand?”

He nodded. “Can’t say for sure who did it.”

He left it at that, and they lapsed again into silence. They sat until the chill made them shiver, and when they finally stood up again, Allura felt like she was on the verge of collapsing right then and there.

“Princess…you should get some sleep,” Coran told her softly.

She sighed. “We all should.”

* * *

Quintants, movements, deca-phoebs passed quickly. Allura counted fourteen of the latter.

Fourteen deca-phoebs in which the colony flourished in secret, hidden from the rest of the universe. Fourteen deca-phoebs in which civil unrest slowly gave way to stability Fourteen deca-phoebs during which she did not once speak to Lotor.

Until today.

“Queen Allura,” Keith asked, “Are you sure this is a good idea…”

“I cannot ignore this meeting any longer,” she sighed. “The Galra empire may have shrunken to a fraction of its former size, but they are still a part of this universe. A part of the Coalition.” She allowed her shoulders to slump a bit as she anxiously intertwined her fingers. “Though I can’t say it won’t be…strange.”

“I could join you…” he offered, but she held up a hand.

“No. No, I must do this alone, Keith. But thank you. Truly.” She managed a smile as they reached the doors, and he nodded before she went inside.

The massive window overlooking the stars stretched so wide and tall that she could scarcely see its edges without craning her neck. It had long been her favorite room in the castle, and ever since it had been completed, she had spent all of the time she could spare here looking out at the stars. It appeared that she wasn’t the only one who found the view hypnotizing.

Lotor had his back to her, his hands clasped behind him, his hair tied back and hanging down over his fingers like a waterfall. He didn’t move as the doors closed behind her, but remained statue-still, facing the stars.

“Your majesty,” he finally said. “I wasn’t expecting your summons.”

“There’s no need for titles,” she told him, stepping closer until he finally turned to face her. She didn’t know what she had expected from someone who had lived for 10 millennia, but it seemed as if the deca-phoebs since they had last seen each other had weighed on him. There were a few new lines on his face, not so deep that they startled her, but she couldn’t help but trace each one where it tracked across once smooth skin.

“Has my appearance changed so drastically that you need to stare?” he asked, one eyebrow arching.

“No – I-“

He let out a soft chuckle. “It’s alright. I’m still getting used to it myself…” He brought a hand up to his own cheek. “As it turns out, being drained of the quintessence flooding through me took its toll on my body. Though I suppose it’s a small price to pay.”

He bowed his head as she searched for words. “You, of course, look as well as ever,” he said.

She took a breath, squaring her shoulders and meeting his gaze. There was still a weblum in the room, and it weighed on them both. “You’re probably wondering why I brought you here,” she relented.

“I admit I am. I could not very well turn down a summons from a queen.” He sighed as he turned to the window again, his face in almost perfect profile as he gazed out over the stars. “Not many Galra were willing to follow my new stance of turning our focus away from the quintessence. A few factions remained loyal…but the empire as a whole, I’m afraid, has been split. Perhaps irreversibly. And yet…despite that many may call me a failure, we have entered a new era of peace. As you are undoubtedly to thank for that, you have my loyalty. And so when you summon me…I will come.”

“Well as it happens,” she said, “I did not summon you to discuss politics. I summoned you because of a…a much more personal matter.”

He blinked. “Personal?”

“To us both.” She clasped her hands in front of her, gazing up at him. “I find…the events of fourteen deca-phoebs ago weigh on me greatly.” He stiffened. “And I’ve heard rumors…stories of an emperor who roams the halls of his ship at night because he’s unable to sleep.”

Lotor let out a slow breath, his posture never wavering and his hands remaining clasped behind his back. But his fingers tensed against his own palms. “It’s merely the weight I live with, Allura. Nothing that you should have to bear.”

“Well I do bear it,” she insisted. “There’s no way I couldn’t. You know that.”

His eyes closed. “I do.”

She joined him at the window, allowing herself a few ticks of silence before she spoke again: “I have plans for a…pilgrimage of sorts. To meditate on my own thoughts and feelings. I believe it’s…time I return to Oriande.”

His eyes flew open again as he drew a sharp breath. “Oriande?”

“Yes. And I believe…that you should accompany me.”

“Allura…I can’t.”

“I’ve thought long and hard about this. Oriande is a resting place for the souls of departed Alteans – if you truly want to try and face what you did in your past, perhaps-“

“I _can’t,_ ” he insisted, turning toward her, pressing a hand to her arm. “Allura, I am not refusing. I…” He hung his head, letting his hand drop to his side. “After what happened in the quintessence field…after what it…revealed in me…there is no way I would ever be deemed worthy of entering Oriande again.”

She looked him over for a good dobash or so, her lips pressed hard together and her brow knit in determination. She had to do this, and so did he. She felt it in her bones. “How will you ever know if you do not try?” she finally asked, and he managed to glance up at her. “Lotor…we shared this once. I learned so much in Oriande from you, but I learned even more on my own since then. So please – trust me.”

He swallowed, letting out an unsteady breath, and finally nodded.

They departed two quintants later. It was an odd feeling, once again piloting a ship with Lotor, and the long stretches of silence were not always comfortable. But Allura could feel it, deep within her – a determination the likes of which she hadn’t felt in a long time.

This was the right path. It had to be.

“Approaching the white hole,” Lotor finally announced, an unmistakable waver in his voice. “Allura…listen…if we are attacked-“

“We won’t be.”

“ _If we are,_ the escape pod is ready. I want you to take it.”

“Lotor,” she said gently, a familiar swell of warmth in her chest accompanying the tingle in her cheeks. “We are not going to be attacked. I’m sure of it.” She nodded toward him, looking at the faint purple glow emanating from within his own helmet.

The breath rushed out of him, one hand coming up to touch the marks there, as if he didn’t believe they were real. “That’s…”

“We’re not through yet,” she reminded him. “We must keep going.”

And so they did, through the white hole, through the cloud cover over the wide expanse of Oriande. Allura let out a sigh that she hadn’t realized had been trapped deep in her chest – a sigh of relief as a strange sense of _calm_ rushed over her. As if this place had enveloped her in a warm embrace.

Once they landed on the outskirts, Lotor didn’t move from his seat. He sat, staring straight ahead, his grip so tight on the controls that his knuckles strained against his gloves. There was fear in his eyes, and Allura knew why. It was a fear that was not meant to be ignored.

But it could be overcome.

She reached for his hand. “Come on,” she urged. “We must do this, Lotor. You cannot turn back now.”

She could see from the way he looked at her that he knew she was right. After a long couple of ticks, he reached out and took her hand.

The steps stretched out before them, leading up to the wide arching gateway to the castle. They had walked these steps before, but it felt so different now – the climb seemed to draw on their strength in a way it hadn’t the first time they had come. Despite the sun shining down upon them, she felt a chill in the air. It seeped through her armor and flight suit and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“It didn’t feel this way the first time we came here,” Lotor mused as they reached the top of the steps and paused. “Despite my dark past then…why do I suddenly feel so much more aware of their presence?”

He stared down the darkness of the castle corridor, hands shaking at his sides. “It’s like I said before,” she told him. “Quintessence reveals. Perhaps it awakened something inside you. A…connection that you’d been trying to suppress.”

He swallowed, removing his helmet and letting the wind catch in his hair. “I buried them, Allura,” he said softly, standing in the entranceway and facing the shadows. “Each and every one of them. I buried them because I didn’t know how else I could ever atone…”

Her breath caught in her chest. “The graves,” she breathed, “On the moon…”

“Perhaps it was just selfish of me…one last attempt to forget the reality of what I was doing.”

She removed her own helmet, taking in the sight of him clearly on the sunlit stone – his face drawn and cast in shadow from the archway above them. “If you had merely been trying to forget,” she offered, “There would have been no headstones.”

She didn’t wait for him to reply, but walked past him into the castle. A moment later, his footsteps echoed with her own through the darkened corridor. They walked in silence, their hearts racing until they made it to the end of the hall. And there, standing before them, was the white lion.

It looked straight past Allura, leveling what seemed like a powerful glare just over her shoulder. She didn’t need to look to know that it was aimed at Lotor, and she felt him stop beside her. “I’m here,” he said, his voice quaking, “…to face those I’ve harmed.”

The lion growled, and finally turned, but instead of leading them down the corridor ahead, it let loose a roar that echoed through the entire chamber. The roar gave way to a resounding crash and groan as the floor beneath the lion’s feet gave way, collapsing into a narrow, darkened staircase that led down into pitch black nothingness.

Lotor stared at it and clenched his fists to steady his own hands as they descended.

“Do you think it’s meaningless to apologize?” he asked her as they were bathed in darkness. “For an atrocity so great, it feels so…empty.”

“It’s only empty if you make it empty,” Allura told him after a beat as their feet finally came to rest again on level ground. “And I don’t think it’s meaningless.”

On either side of them, torches blazed to life, lining the long hallway ahead. The ceiling was so high that Allura couldn’t make it out – the soft white glow faded into blackness again before it reached the top. Their footsteps were deafening here as they walked, and the closer they came to the end, the more audible Lotor’s breathing became. But they never stopped, never slowed, and eventually they came to a wide circular chamber, lined all along its circumference with crystals no larger than Allura’s fingernail. In the center, a single soft beam of light filtered in front above: a star-shaped window to the outside world, so high up above them that she could barely make it out.

And in the center of the light, standing before them, was the lion.

Lotor leaned down, placing his helmet on the ground by his feet before stepping forward. Each step seemed to take all of his concentration, as if it drew on every ounce of strength he had to keep moving forward toward the lion.

“I am Lotor,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady now, “I have done terrible things. Committed atrocities in the name of protecting the Altean race. I’ve come seeking those whose lives I took…in the hopes of…” He turned toward her, locking eyes just for a moment. “In the hopes of…offering my apologies.”

The lion growled, stalking towards him, and he stiffened, deep-seated reflexes battling for control. But he stayed motionless, facing down the lion as it approached. “I’ve heard your voices.” His own voice broke over the words, his hands trembling. “I’ve heard your anger and pain and fear. I have nothing to offer in atonement, except…”

He fell to his knees before the white lion.

“My life…” His arms went slack at his sides. “I offer my life…if it will somehow ease your pain.”

The lion stopped, looking down at him from just inches away. It seemed…expectant. Allura barely managed to breathe.

Lotor sighed. “I haven’t forgotten you…I remember your names…I tried to forget them for centuries, but they never left me. Gnautu…Rahz…Petrulius…Bandor…”

Allura stood and watched, her eyes fixed on the lion as it sat before Lotor. She listened as he listed the names – listened for over half a varga as he spoke every single one. All one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine of them. And once he had listed the last, the chamber fell deathly silent.

“All of you,” Lotor whispered. “I am…so truly, deeply, profoundly sorry.”

Slowly, the lion leaned forward and pressed its muzzle to Lotor’s forehead, and in a flash of light it disappeared.

Lotor swayed on his knees for a moment, letting out a breath that seemed to rattle him down to his bones. Finally, he collapsed forward onto the stone floor. Allura rushed over before she realized her feet were moving at all, turning him onto his back. “Lotor?” she gasped. “Lotor!”

With a groan, he opened his eyes. “I’m…still alive.”

“Yes…” She blinked away tears. “Those names…you still remembered all of them.”

“It was the very least I could do,” he said softly. Slowly, he managed to sit up. “The voices…they’ve quieted…” A tear dripped down onto the stone. “I don’t understand why I was allowed to live. I thought I deserved death…just like my father…”

She pressed her palms against his jaw, tilting his face up until he looked at her. “Zarkon never once shed a tear for those he hurt,” she said. “He never sought forgiveness, never apologized, never showed an ounce of remorse. You did terrible things, Lotor. But you are not your father.”

He drew in a shaking breath and let his own tears fall freely, leaning forward until his forehead was pressed against hers. “Allura, I…”

“I know…” she whispered. “Come on…we should leave these spirits to rest.”

* * *

In a darkened bedroom, Allura and Lotor stared up at the ceiling. They watched the swirling holographic galaxies projected overhead shift and turn, not exchanging a word between them for nearly a varga.

“Can you still hear them?” Allura asked him quietly, wondering if he had already drifted off to sleep. But he looked over at her and let out a soft hum.

“Like a whisper,” he said, his own voice barely more than that. “I suppose I’ll carry them with me the rest of my life.”

She turned to look at him, finding his eyelids drooping and his expression drawn. “You should sleep, you know,” she said. “What you did today…I believe it was a good thing.” She reached for his hand and laced their fingers together. “Thank you…for coming with me.”

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to add, I am not in any way trying to trivialize or making excuses for what Lotor did. It was monstrous no matter how you look at it. 
> 
> What I am trying to do is gather up the pieces of what should have been an interesting and complex character and make something out of it that shows that Lotor's abuse - while not excusing his actions - also does not mean that he is destined to become an evil quintessence-addicted maniac. Because that's a shitty message to send. 
> 
> Lotor deserved better. Allura deserved better. This is just me trying to give them something better.


End file.
